Caligula | Page 5

countrymen, was added
an uncommon regard by foreign nations. Even Artabanus, king of the
Parthians, who had always manifested hatred and contempt for Tiberius,
solicited his friendship; came to hold a conference with his consular
lieutenant, and passing the Euphrates, paid the highest honours to the
eagles, the Roman standards, and the images of the Caesars. [397]
XV. Caligula himself inflamed this devotion, by practising all the arts
of popularity. After he had delivered, with floods of tears, a speech in
praise of Tiberius, and buried him with the utmost pomp, he
immediately hastened over to Pandataria and the Pontian islands [398],
to bring thence the ashes of his mother and brother; and, to testify the
great regard he had for their memory, he performed the voyage in a
very tempestuous season. He approached their remains with profound
veneration, and deposited them in the urns with his own hands. Having
brought them in grand solemnity to Ostia [399], with an ensign flying
in the stern of the galley, and thence up the Tiber to Rome, they were
borne by persons of the first distinction in the equestrian order, on two
biers, into the mausoleum [400], (260) at noon-day. He appointed
yearly offerings to be solemnly and publicly celebrated to their memory,
besides Circensian games to that of his mother, and a chariot with her
image to be included in the procession [401]. The month of September
he called Germanicus, in honour of his father. By a single decree of the
senate, he heaped upon his grandmother, Antonia, all the honours
which had been ever conferred on the empress Livia. His uncle,
Claudius, who till then continued in the equestrian order, he took for

his colleague in the consulship. He adopted his brother, Tiberius [402],
on the day he took upon him the manly habit, and conferred upon him
the title of "Prince of the Youths." As for his sisters, he ordered these
words to be added to the oaths of allegiance to himself: "Nor will I hold
myself or my own children more dear than I do Caius and his sisters:"
[403] and commanded all resolutions proposed by the consuls in the
senate to be prefaced thus: "May what we are going to do, prove
fortunate and happy to Caius Caesar and his sisters." With the like
popularity he restored all those who had been condemned and banished,
and granted an act of indemnity against all impeachments and past
offences. To relieve the informers and witnesses against his mother and
brothers from all apprehension, he brought the records of their trials
into the forum, and there burnt them, calling loudly on the gods to
witness that he had not read or handled them. A memorial which was
offered him relative to his own security, he would not receive,
declaring, "that he had done nothing to make any one his enemy:" and
said, at the same time, "he had no ears for informers."
XVI. The Spintriae, those panderers to unnatural lusts [404], he
banished from the city, being prevailed upon not to throw them (261)
into the sea, as he had intended. The writings of Titus Labienus, Cordus
Cremutius, and Cassius Severus, which had been suppressed by an act
of the senate, he permitted to be drawn from obscurity, and universally
read; observing, "that it would be for his own advantage to have the
transactions of former times delivered to posterity." He published
accounts of the proceedings of the government--a practice which had
been introduced by Augustus, but discontinued by Tiberius [405]. He
granted the magistrates a full and free jurisdiction, without any appeal
to himself. He made a very strict and exact review of the Roman
knights, but conducted it with moderation; publicly depriving of his
horse every knight who lay under the stigma of any thing base and
dishonourable; but passing over the names of those knights who were
only guilty of venial faults, in calling over the list of the order. To
lighten the labours of the judges, he added a fifth class to the former
four. He attempted likewise to restore to the people their ancient right
of voting in the choice of magistrates [406]. He paid very honourably,
and without any dispute, the legacies left by Tiberius in his will, though
it had been set aside; as likewise those left by the will of Livia Augusta,

which Tiberius had annulled. He remitted the hundredth penny, due to
the government in all auctions throughout Italy. He made up to many
their losses sustained by fire; and when he restored their kingdoms to
any princes, he likewise allowed them all the arrears of the taxes and
revenues which had accrued in the interval; as in the case of Antiochus
of Comagene, where the confiscation would have amounted to a
hundred